How do standings work in baseball

MLB Magic Number. Every September, sports fans are eager to see which teams will clinch postseason berths in Major League Baseball, and every year they are greeted by two critical words: Magic Number. Our redesigned local news and weather app is live! Download it for iOS or Android — and sign up for alerts.

Liam Hendriks Nov Jake Arrieta Nov Back to Article. Close Menu. Search for:. Follow Us Facebook Twitter Instagram. Throughout the baseball season, the positions of the 30 MLB teams are tracked through the standings. In addition to its win-loss record and winning percentage, the standings indicate how many regular-season games a team needs to win to secure one of the eight slots available for postseason play.

The "W" and "L" columns of the standings list the number of games each team has won and lost, respectively. The "PCT" column shows the teams' winning percentages, which is calculated by dividing the number of games won by the total number of games played and rounding up or down to three digits past the decimal. The "Home" and "Road" or "Away" columns show the win-loss records for each team for games played in its home stadium and as the visiting team in road games. The "L10" column depicts each team's win-loss record for the past 10 games, with the number of wins represented first.

GB in baseball standings stands for "games back" or "games behind. For each other team, GB represents the average of the difference in both wins and losses between this team and the division leader. For example, if the division leader has 60 wins and 40 losses and the second-place team in the division has 55 wins and 45 losses, the second-place team is five games behind and will have "5.

GB is an average, so each game played only counts as a half game in regard to this number. Thus, each game won by the division leader increases the GB by 0. The GB number will increase from the top to the bottom of the division standings. The elimination number, depicted as "E" or "E ," represents the combined number of wins by the division leader and losses by another team in the division needed for the top team to clinch a spot in the postseason.